Using recent advances in marine biomechanics, materials science, and tissue engineering, a team of researchers at Harvard University and the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have turned inanimate silicone and ...

Research into how carbohydrates are converted into energy has led to a surprising discovery with implications for the treatment of a perplexing and potentially fatal neuromuscular disorder and possibly even cancer and heart ...

Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute have unraveled a complex chemical pathway that enables bacteria to form clusters called biofilms. Such improved understanding might eventually aid the development of new treatments ...

(PhysOrg.com) -- A new method for creating nanofibers made of proteins, developed by researchers at Polytechnic Institute of New York University (NYU-Poly), promises to greatly improve drug delivery methods for the treatment ...

(PhysOrg.com) -- Damaged human heart muscle cannot be regenerated. Scar tissue grows in place of the damaged muscle cells. Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Heart and Lung Research in Bad Nauheim are seeking to ...

In a compact lab space at Stanford University, Oscar Abilez, MD, trains a microscope on a small collection of cells in a petri dish. A video recorder projects what the microscope sees on a nearby monitor. The cells in the ...

While research using human embryonic stem cells has roused political controversy for almost two decades, little has been done to scientifically assess American attitudes on the subject. New research from the University of ...

Fruits and vegetables that provide the highest levels of vitamins and minerals to the human diet globally depend heavily on bees and other pollinating animals, according to a new study published in the international online ...

(PhysOrg.com) -- NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, has captured a huge mosaic of two bubbling clouds in space, known as the Heart and Soul nebulae. The space telescope, which has completed about three-fourths ...

Human heart

The human heart provides a continuous blood circulation through the cardiac cycle and is one of the most vital organs in the human body. It is divided into four chambers: the two upper chambers are called the left and right atria and two lower chambers are called the right and left ventricles. Normally the right ventricle pumps the same blood amount into the lungs with each bit that the left ventricle pumps out. Physicians commonly refer to the right atrium and right ventricle together as the right heart and to the left atrium and ventricle as the left heart.

The electric energy that stimulates the heart occurs in the sinoatrial node, which produces a definite potential and then discharges, sending an impulse across the atria. The Purkinje fibers transmit the electric charge to the myocardium while the cells of the atrial walls transmit it from cell to cell, making the atrial syncytium.

The human heart and its disorders (cardiopathies) are studied primarily by cardiology.